Lawrence crime, fire, courts coverage

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A 30-year-old Minneapolis, Kan., man has been charged with two felony drug offenses in connection with a Saturday afternoon disturbance in which a witness reported a gunshot fired in the parking lot of a Lawrence McDonald’s at 4911 W. Sixth St.

Lawrence police arrested Anthony D. Foster Monday after an investigation into the incident led investigators from Lawrence to Topeka and then Minneapolis, about 15 miles north of Salina. In what investigators believe was a drug-related robbery Saturday about 3 p.m., a witness reported a shot was fired in the restaurant's parking lot, said Sgt. Trent McKinley, a Lawrence Police Department spokesman.

A 31-year-old man who reported the gunshot suffered a minor injury to his hand in the incident but was not shot. He declined medical treatment, McKinley said, and investigators still have not confirmed that a gun was fired in the parking lot. Police are still seeking more suspects in the case and anticipate more arrests.

Several people believed to have been involved in the disturbance had left the area before police arrived, McKinley said. A black Dodge Charger, registered in Shawnee County, was involved in the incident and remained at the scene.

Monday, Foster was booked into Douglas County Jail, where he remained Tuesday. Douglas County prosecutors charged him Tuesday afternoon with two felony drug offense related to the Saturday incident. Prosecutors accused Foster of conspiring by phone to buy more than a kilogram of synthetic marijuana from a seller in the parking lot of the McDonald's. Separately, they charged him with attempting to make the purchase.

Foster was convicted of domestic battery and drug possession in Shawnee County in 2010. He spent almost five years in federal prison between 2003 and 2008 after pleading guilty to distributing methamphetamine in Shawnee County in 2002.

Douglas County pro-tem Judge James George set bond in the case at $50,000. Foster next appears in court on June 11.

Comments

Obviously the owner of this establishment attracts this type of crowd and the city should look at revoking their business permit! The manager is failing in their duty to ensure this type of activity doesn't go on.

Different business are regulated differently and should be regulated differently. Comparing McDonald's to the Club Magic is silly. The conditions a bar owner agrees to when being granted a liquor license are very different than the conditions a restaurant agrees to when applying for a permit to do business. As long as each complies with the conditions they agreed to, then there should be no problems.

What you are doing is trying to create a false equivalency. Are you saying that because a book store is being allowed to open next door to an elementary school that a strip club has the same right? Or a medical marijuana establishment? Or because Perkins can stay open 24/7, so too should a bar?

No vertigo, we are not "absolutely" free. That's why we have laws. That's why businesses are regulated. If we were truly free, I could pay my workers a penny per hour, in sweatshop like conditions. My freedom has been diminished because of regulatory demands. Right?

You want bars open 24/7. You want strip clubs open right next door to a school. I do not. You do have the freedom to vote for people who would implement your desires as I have the freedom to vote for what I want. And should your ideas prevail, I have the freedom to move to a place where I feel comfortable. As would you.

I'll respond by importing more workers willing to work for a penny an hour. Your labor costs will cause your product to be higher priced. I'll be the new Wal-Mart. My parking lot will be full of shoppers during the day and RVs at night.

The rules for a bar are different than those for a restaurant. The applicant agrees to those rules as a condition for receiving their respective permits.

If you want the rules to be the same, please feel free to go to Topeka to advocate for such change. But until your position prevails, we still have the system we have, which is different for bars than for restaurants.

Nobody will dispute that the rules are different. What I remain unconvinced about is whether the nightclub has failed to abide by those rules. If they are breaking the rules, fine, close them down. But right now it looks like they are following the rules. That only leaves me with one conclusion regarding your zeal to close the place down and it isn't pretty. It looks to me like your position is one that punishes an innocent party for the actions of some other party that committed a crime. I don't think due process will allow that.

Drug deals take place all over the city of Lawrence in different parking lots, public and private. McDonalds on west 6th street was probably just the spot named by either the buyer or seller while they were on the cell phone getting ready to make the exchange. I have seen the scenario several times in different lots around town. A car pulls into the parking lot and nobody gets out to go to a place of business or nearby building. Another car pulls in and parks a short distance from the first. Often one or both parties are on the cell phone when they drive into the lot. One party goes to the other car, gets in and is there less then a minute or two and goes back to his car. Both cars leave and go different directions. That doesn't prove a drug transaction took place, but if you see it often enough you'd believe it. Who knows why the deal at McDonalds went sour.

Mikekt, the business about the guns is exactly why I kept my distance when I observed the activity. They might be armed and I was not. Even if they were not armed, does anyone think they would take my "Intrusion" into their business lightly? I never was in position to get a license plate number and could not just walk over and note it and write it down. Holcom Park east of the gym was active a while back.
Of course, Lawrence is not the only place I've seen this. I've seen it in Seattle, Huntington Beach and other tourist cities. You almost have to be blind to not see it.

When comments are made like "people like you" I know that somebody is trying to insult me in some sort of way, which I find offensive - it's also not a very "Christian" way to discuss issues.

You seem obsessed with an obvious point, that criminals don't obey the laws, but that point doesn't mean what you want it to mean, that laws are irrelevant and/or useless. If we didn't require people to have driver's licenses, I'd be willing to bet that we'd have more bad drivers and more accidents.

And, as I said before, I don't know anybody who claims that background checks will solve all of the problems, so you're arguing with a position nobody advocates, which seems a bit like a waste of time to me.

You got that right. You can't look at a gun at Cabela's anymore. You have to wait in a line of about 30 people, 25 of which have no business even looking at a gun much less being in a Cabela's to start with. The ammo is picked over and it is like being in a mosh pit at a Pantera concert every time I go over to the guns and ammo section. It really sucks because I like Cabela's, I love to hunt and fish and like the store. But the Bass Pro Shops in Olathe gets more of my business because its not so crowded and I can actually look at stuff.